Reorganized State Department Will Accomodate Republicans

By John F. Harris and Thomas W. LippmanThe Washington PostWASHINGTON

President Clinton Thursday approved a broad reorganization of the State
Department and three other foreign affairs agencies, a move that
administration officials said was spurred in part by the need to
accommodate congressional Republicans and keep them from thwarting
Clinton's foreign policy agenda.

Under a plan crafted by Vice President Gore and endorsed by Clinton in
an Oval Office meeting Thursday afternoon, two currently independent
agencies - the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the U.S. Information
Agency - would lose their autonomy and be folded into the State Department,
according to officials involved in the decision.

A third organization, the Agency for International Development, would
remain a separate agency, but its director would report to the Secretary of
State rather than to the president as current law allows, the officials
said.

The reorganization, which officials said would be announced soon, is a
longstanding priority of Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms,
R-N.C., and the president's decision came on the same day the
administration won Helms's consent to allow a treaty banning chemical
weapons to come to the floor of the Senate next week for a vote.

Reshuffling the nation's foreign policy bureaucracy and persuading Helms
not to unilaterally torpedo a treaty that he adamantly opposes was not part
of an explicit bargain, administration officials said.

But White House aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, readily
acknowledged that Helms's insistence on reorganizing the State Department
helped push the decision to closure. And they are hoping that Clinton, in
moving ahead with the decision, will win some good will among Republicans
at a time he urgently needs it.

The Chemical Weapons Convention, already ratified by 72 other countries,
takes effect on April 29, and administration officials are lobbying
frantically to ensure Senate passage before then. Failure to do so would
subject the United States to sanctions, administration officials said, as
well as being a humiliating repudiation of Clinton.

Helms is still opposed to the treaty, but an administration official
said Thursday night that Clinton's decision to take into account Republican
criticisms would help create "an environment in which more people will be
favorably inclined" to support the treaty.

In any case, the official said, "Helms has made it absolutely clear that
this was a quid pro quo" and that unless Clinton moved to reorganize, he
would try to trip the administration at every turn on a broad range of
issues.

A Helms aide Thursday night sounded triumphant. "This is a huge victory,
and we've conceded nothing on chemical weapons," said Marc Thiessen, a
spokesman for Helms.

In principle, the administration plan sounds much like what Helms wants,
he said, but "the devil is in the details," which the administration will
have to negotiate with Congress.

Legislation for the reorganization has not yet been drafted, and
officials could not say how many jobs will be eliminated as the State
Department bureaucracy is pruned in the merger with other agencies. Initial
cost savings will be modest, according to an administration official
involved in drafting the proposal.

White House officials made clear their view that there are sound policy
reasons for the reorganization regardless of Helms's views. Gore and his
staff shepherded the reorganization as part of the "Reinventing Government"
program he has championed, aimed at streamlining and modernizing the way
federal agencies work.

As a practical matter, however, the plan Gore ultimately unveiled
strongly resembled one offered by Helms two years ago. Conservatives like
Helms are broadly skeptical of both international development and
disarmament, and both AID and the arms control agency have been favorite
targets for years. The administration fought Helms tooth and nail over his
proposal throughout 1995.